Hogarth and Europe

It was a century of war (mostly) and peace (occasionally), ofextraordinary wealth and grinding poverty, gargantuan appetites anddesperate famines, high ideals and hypocrisy, a century of intellectual,social and religious turmoil. In this fertile turbulence flourished one ofBritain's greatest artists: painter, printmaker, satirist, and social criticWilliam Hogarth, of whom the essayist and poet Charles Lamb oncesaid, 'Other pictures we look at; his pictures we read'.Illustrating the full range of Hogarth's most important paintings andprints, this book shows them in a new light, juxtaposed with workby major European contemporaries who influenced him or tooktheir inspiration from him in their painting of modern life - includingWatteau, Chardin, Troost and Longhi. Hogarth is revealed not only as akey figure in British art history, but also as a major European artist.It is also a tale of four cities: London, Paris, Venice and Amsterdam,represented in maps from the period. The themes of city life, socialprotest, sexuality and satire which come to the fore in the art ofHogarth and his contemporaries are very much live today.